Rote
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Ken whines into Chikusa's shoulder, non-verbal protest made wholly comprehensible by the years Chikusa has spent with him, the memories that go back as far as either of them ever care to remember." Ken has a better memory than Chikusa lets himself indulge in.


"Move over, Kaki-pi."

Chikusa doesn't look up from his book. "Ken. You're back."

"Move," Ken says again, this time coupling the demand with a hand pushing at Chikusa's shoulder. "You're taking up the whole couch."

"I am not," Chikusa protests without heat; none is needed for the patent truth of the statement. "There's plenty of space for you to sit down."

"I don't want to _sit_ ," Ken complains. There's the crinkle of cellophane, the patter of cardboard boxes dropping to the floor as Ken lets his most recent purchases topple to the floor in a waterfall of conveniently sized packets; Chikusa feels the battered couch sink as Ken climbs onto the other side of it, the movement warning of an impending push. He doesn't brace against it; when Ken leans in against him they both go over sideways, Chikusa's glasses tilting askew as his head hits the cushions at the side of the sofa.

"Ken," he sighs, turning to free himself from the uncomfortable press of his frames against the side of his face. "Don't be a pest."

"I told you to move," Ken says in the tone of one considering himself to be a paragon of rationality.

"So you can just throw yourself atop me, given sufficient warning?" Chikusa gets his glasses recentered, lets the book slide from his hold to land on the floor. He wasn't particularly engrossed by it anyway, and the odds of successfully reading once Ken has him pinned down are uselessly low.

"You always tell me to warn you," Ken points out, achieving a tone both aggrieved and petulant at once. "I warned you."

"Fine," Chikusa says, more resigned than persuaded. Ken seems to take the statement as the latter anyway, judging from the way he tucks his head into Chikusa's shoulder and nuzzles himself into the closeness that he seems to find a comfort. Chikusa blinks at the ceiling, his vision only slightly interrupted by the tangle of yellow hair in his periphery, and lets gravity weight his arm over Ken's shoulders.

"What were you doing?" he asks, after the quiet has gone comfortable. Ken's elbow is digging into his side; the weight of the other atop him is making Chikusa's leg ache with impending numbness. "Were you hungry again?"

'I'm always hungry," Ken says into his neck. His breath is hot against Chikusa's skin, like the radiance of the summer sun drawing condensation against the sides of a cold glass. "I needed to go shopping."

"Yes," Chikusa says, more from habit than patience. His fingers find their way into Ken's hair, work against one of the knots that form the strands into a halo around his face. "I could have gone with you."

Ken whines into his shoulder, non-verbal protest made wholly comprehensible by the years Chikusa has spent with him, the memories that go back as far as either of them ever care to remember. Chikusa sighs, tugs against Ken's hair until the knot comes free. "It's fine," he says, even though it's not entirely, even though having Ken out of eyeshot always makes him feel like he's missing a hand or like all the gravity of the world has tipped a few degrees sideways. "I don't care."

"It's not because I wanted to go alone," Ken volunteers, his hand finding the edge of Chikusa's shirt and making a fist of the fabric. "Stupid Kaki-pi."

"Okay," Chikusa says, no emotion in his voice at all. "Why did you?"

"It needed to be a surprise," Ken explains, like this sentence clarifies all the oddities of him wanting to go shopping alone. "Presents are supposed to be a surprise."

Chikusa blinks at the ceiling, where understanding fails to form. "Presents?"

"Stupid," Ken says, and lifts his head from Chikusa's shoulder. Chikusa looks at him obediently, takes in the crease across Ken's forehead and the frown at his lips. "You always forget your birthday."

The sensation that Chikusa experiences is a strange one, an emotion so rarely felt that he has forgotten its name. It starts low in his stomach, a ball of heat that eases into warmth as it spreads through his veins, like he's slowly turning into light as Ken watches him. It's odd to feel so warm, to feel so bright; when Chikusa blinks again even his vision is clearer, his thoughts coming into more clarity than he can usually manage under the influence of whatever soft-edged sensation is slipping through his veins.

"My birthday?" he repeats.

Ken rolls his eyes. "Yeah," he says, his forehead smoothing as his frown turns itself into a sloppy grin formed of comforting familiarity. "You always say you're going to remember and you never do."

Chikusa doesn't have an answer to this. There are many things he doesn't remember, whole swathes of his history stolen by others or that he's deliberately misplaced, memories that proved safer to abandon than to carry with him on a day-to-day basis. His birthday is just one of those, a date too freighted with childhood shadows for his psyche to bear if he is to function at any level of normalcy.

"You should say thank you," Ken informs him with the complete surety of someone who has spent some time considering this.

"Thank you," Chikusa echos obediently.

Ken's grin goes wide, blossoms into a full-fledged smile as he ducks in close enough that his hair catches at Chikusa's glasses. "You're welcome, Kaki-pi," he says, and presses his mouth against Chikusa's in an approximation of a kiss. Chikusa blinks into the halo of gold for a minute, into the color of Ken's hair made brighter by proximity; then he thinks through what's happening, and shuts his eyes, and tastes the artificial sweet of candy on Ken's lips as his leg goes numb under the other's weight.

This feeling, he thinks, is one worth remembering.


End file.
